2014
HIGHER SCHOOL CERTIFICATE
EXAMINATION
English (Standard)
and English (Advanced)
Paper 1 — Area of Study
Total marks – 45
Section I
General Instructions
• Reading time – 10 minutes
• Working time – 2 hours
• Write using black or blue pen
Black pen is preferred
Pages 3–9
15 marks
• Attempt Question 1
• Allow about 40 minutes for this section
Section II
Page 10
15 marks
• Attempt Question 2
• Allow about 40 minutes for this section
Section III
Pages 11–12
15 marks
• Attempt Question 3
• Allow about 40 minutes for this section
1210
BLANK PAGE
–2–
Section I
15 marks
Attempt Question 1
Allow about 40 minutes for this section
Answer the question on pages 2–6 of the Paper 1 Writing Booklet. Extra writing booklets are
available.
In your answers you will be assessed on how well you:
■ demonstrate understanding of the way perceptions of belonging are shaped in and
through texts
■ describe, explain and analyse the relationship between language, text and context
Question 1 (15 marks)
Examine Texts one, two and three carefully and then answer the questions on page 9.
Question 1 continues on page 4
– 3 –
Text one — Media release extract
In Constant Digital
Contact, We Feel
‘Alone Together’
17 October, 2012
A
s soon as Sherry Turkle arrived at
the studio for her interview, she
realized she’d forgotten her
phone. “I realized I’d left it behind, and I felt
a moment of Oh my god … and I felt it kind
of in the pit of my stomach,” she tells Terry
Gross. That feeling of emotional dependence
on digital devices is the focus of Turkle’s
research. Her book, Alone Together, explores
how new technology is changing the way we
communicate with one another.
“The pull of these devices is so strong, that
we’ve become used to them faster than
anyone would have suspected,” says Turkle,
a clinical psychologist and the founder of
MIT’s Initiative on Technology and Self.
Her research investigates how devices are
changing the way parents relate to their
children, how friends interact, and why many
people – both young and old – keep their
devices in-hand all the time – even as
they sleep.
When Turkle asked teens and adults why they
preferred text messaging over face-to-face
conversation, they responded that when
you’re face to face, “you can’t control what
you are going to say, and you don’t know how
long it’s going to take or where
it could go.” But Turkle believes that these
perceived weaknesses of conversation
Text one continues on page 5
– 4 –
Text one (continued)
are actually conversation’s strengths.
Face-to-face interaction teaches “skills of
negotiation, of reading each other’s emotion,
of having to face the complexity of
confrontation, dealing with complex
emotion,” Turkle says. She thinks people
who feel they are too busy to have
conversations in person are not making the
important emotional connections they
otherwise would.
All this leads to Turkle’s theory that it is
possible to be in constant digital
communication and yet still feel very much
alone. In Turkle’s interviews with adults and
teenagers, she found people of all ages are
drawn to their devices for a similar reason:
“What is so seductive about texting, about
keeping that phone on … is you want to
know who wants you,” Turkle says.
Interview Highlights
On young children using digital devices
“Children are getting these phones earlier
and earlier. These are years when children
need to develop this capacity for solitude,
this capacity to feel complete playing alone.
If you don’t have a capacity for solitude, you
will always be lonely, and my concern is that
the tethered child never really feels that sense
that they are sort of OK unto themselves; and
I talk to college students who’ve grown up
with the habit of being in touch with their
parents five, 10, 15 times a day.” …
On the effect of Facebook on teen identity
“… I think there’s another thing about the
Facebook identity and adolescence, which is
that many adolescents used to play with
identity, play with multiple identities in
adolescence, and that used to kind of be their
fun, and now there’s one identity that
counts – it’s the Facebook identity. And I
think many adolescents are also feeling the
pressure of that. So there are many things
about the new technology that's changing the
nature of adolescence, and I think that the
complaints of adolescents about the new
technology are – it’s a long list, even as
they’re working with it.”
On why we text
“It used to be that people had a way of
dealing with the world that was basically,
‘I have a feeling, I want to make a call.’ Now
I would capture a way of dealing with the
world, which is: ‘I want to have a feeling,
I need to send a text.’ That is, with this
immediate ability to connect and almost
pressure to … because you’re holding your
phone, you’re constantly with your phone,
it’s almost like you don’t know your thoughts
and feelings until you connect. And that
again is something that I really didn’t see
until texting. You know, kids are sending out
texts all the time. First it was every few
minutes, now it’s many times a minute.”
Acknowledgement: Copyright © October 2, 2012 Sherry Turkle. Reprinted by permission of Basic Books, a member of the Perseus Books Group
End of Text one
–5–
Text two — Non-fiction extract
This is an extract adapted from the introduction to the book Stamping Ground: Stories of the
Northern Suburbs of Melbourne.
Sure I spent most of my first 20 years in Reservoir and moved to Fitzroy in 1989.
But Fitzroy was where I really grew up. Where I landed in my skin. In the grubby
incense-wafting share houses and the cutlery-clattering cafes on Brunswick Street.
And sitting in front bars having a glass or two over a gossip, bitch or a laugh …
My crush on Fitzroy started while driving through the inner-city on twinkling bluesky days in the early 70s. I was intoxicated by the cobblestone lanes, the crumbling
little houses packed tightly together and the brick walls painted with flaking
advertisements for Robur tea. I used to screech with delight at the multi-coloured
double-storey terraces on Nicholson Street with a fleet of orange Kombis parked
out the front. We called them the Rainbow Houses. I remember telling my mother
that I was going to live in one when I grew up. She replied, ‘You wouldn’t want to
live in one of those old terraces. They’re damp, dark and horrible – just ask your
grandmother.’
But I loved living in them. The creaking boards, the outside dunny, and the
windows and doors that either didn’t open or didn’t close. In the summer it was
high-ceilinged refrigerated bliss, and in the winter we had to wear spencers, and eat
soup to take our mind off the fact that our fingers and toes were so cold they could
snap off any minute.
I lived in a handful of terraces while at uni, but the most important was a Rainbow
House in Bell Street … I lived with three guys and we were all penny-pinching, opshop-dwelling, rabble-rousing students. We chained our bikes to the front fence and
would have had a clapped-out brown loose-weave couch on the veranda if someone
had given us one.
I have great memories of that time, a constant stream of drop-ins, the espresso
machine never cold and the stereo never off. Having a break from essays and
wandering down to The Black Cat to devour a plate of nachos washed down with
a milkshake in a frosty steel beaker. The joy of the first warm day in September
when the girls would head for the shops to buy a cheap floral dress made in India
and the boys would pull out their jolly shirts to wear to the Brunswick Street
festival.
In the suburbs I felt poor, ripped-off and oppressed. But it was in Brunswick Street
in the late 80s where I felt those feelings of freedom, confidence and liberation that
blossom when you have your own money and are running your own race. With a
pocket full of the night before's waitressing tips I would wander home on a caffeine
high after a brunch at Rumbas. Picking up a bag of groceries from the Italian
delicatessen that we called The Smelly Shop and lashing out on a bunch of orange
marigolds from Flowers Vasette would make me feel like a queen.
Acknowledgement: © Catherine Deveney
Text two continues on page 7
–6–
Text two (continued)
Awaiting copyright
CATHERINE DEVENY
End of Text two
–7–
Text three — Fiction extract
This blue, indolent town. Its cats. Its pale sky. The empty sky of morning,
drained and pure. Its deep, cloven streets. Its narrow courts, the faint, rotten
odour within, orange peels lying in the corners. The uneven curbstones, their
edges worn away. A town of doctors, all with large houses. Cousson, Proby,
Gilot. Even the streets are named for them. Passageways through the Roman
Wall. The Porte de Breuil, its iron railings sunk into the stone like climbers’
spikes. The women come up the steep grade out of breath, their lungs
creaking. A town still rich with bicycles. In the mornings they flow softly
past. In the streets there’s the smell of bread.
I am awake before dawn, 0545, the bells striking three times, far off and then
a moment later very near. The most devout moments of my life have been
spent in bed at night listening to those bells. They flood over me, drawing me
out of myself. I know where I am suddenly: part of this town and happy. I
lean out of the window and am washed by the cool air, air it seems no one
has yet breathed. Three boys on motorbikes going by. And then the pure,
melancholy, first blue of morning begins. The air one can bathe in. The
electric shriek of a train. Heels on the sidewalk. The first birds. I cannot sleep.
I stand in line in the shops, no one notices. The girls are moving back and
forth behind the counters, girls with white faces, with ankles white as soap,
worn shoes going at the outside toe, dresses showing beneath the white
smocks. Their fingernails are short. In the winter their cheeks will be
splotched with red.
“Monsieur?”*
They wait for me to speak, and of course it all vanishes then. They know I’m
a foreigner. It makes me a little uneasy. I’d like to be able to talk without the
slightest trace of accent – I have the ear for it, I'm told. I'd like, impossible,
to understand everything that’s said on the radio, the words of the songs. I
would like to pass unseen. The little bell hung inside the door rings as I go
out, that’s all.
I come back to the house, open the gate, close it again behind me. The click
is a pleasing sound. The gravel, small as peas, moves beneath my feet and
from it a faint dust rises, the perfume of the town. I breathe it in. I’m
beginning to know it, and the neighborhoods as well. A geography of
favoured streets is forming itself for me while I sleep. This intricate town is
unfolding, detail by detail, piece by piece. I walk along the river on the bank
between two bridges. I stroll through the cemetery that glitters like jewellery
in the last, slanting light. It seems I am seeing an estate, passing among
properties that will someday be mine.
* Monsieur: French word for Mr or Sir
Acknowledgement: Excerpts from A Sport and a Pastime by James Salter. Copyright ©1967, renewed
1995 by James Salter. Reproduced by permission of Farrar, Straus and Giroux, LLC
–8–
In your answers you will be assessed on how well you:
■ demonstrate understanding of the way perceptions of belonging are shaped in and
through texts
■ describe, explain and analyse the relationship between language, text and context
Question 1 (continued)
Text one — Media release extract
(a)
Explain how the book cover reinforces the main issue being raised by
Sherry Turkle.
3
Text two — Non-fiction extract
(b)
How does the author depict her connection to Fitzroy’s Rainbow Houses?
3
Text three — Fiction extract
(c)
Explore how a strong sense of place is created in the extract.
3
Text one, Text two or Text three — Media release extract, Non-fiction extract or
Fiction extract
(d)
Analyse how the complex relationship between people and communities is
portrayed effectively in ONE of these texts.
Answer with reference to Text one OR Text two OR Text three.
End of Question 1
– 9 –
6
Section II
15 marks
Attempt Question 2
Allow about 40 minutes for this section
Answer the question on pages 8–14 of the Paper 1 Writing Booklet. Extra writing booklets are
available.
In your answer you will be assessed on how well you:
■ express understanding of belonging in the context of your studies
■ organise, develop and express ideas using language appropriate to audience, purpose
and context
Question 2 (15 marks)
Among Others … is a collection of different pieces of writing about individuals finding their
place in a community.
Compose a piece of writing which would be suitable for inclusion in this collection.
Use ONE of the sentences below as the first sentence of your imaginative writing.
If you don’t have a capacity for solitude, you will always be lonely.
OR
My little world started to reveal itself to me.
OR
The gravel, small as peas, moved beneath their feet and from it
a faint dust rose, the perfume of the town.
– 10 –
Section III
15 marks
Attempt Question 3
Allow about 40 minutes for this section
Answer the question on pages 16–24 of the Paper 1 Writing Booklet. Extra writing booklets
are available.
In your answer you will be assessed on how well you:
■ demonstrate understanding of the concept of belonging in the context of your study
■ analyse, explain and assess the ways belonging is represented in a variety of texts
■ organise, develop and express ideas using language appropriate to audience, purpose
and context
Question 3 (15 marks)
An individual’s identity is shaped by the way they perceive their connections
with others and the world around them.
How is this view represented in your prescribed text and ONE other related text of your own
choosing?
The prescribed texts are listed on the next page.
Question 3 continues on page 12
– 11 –
Question 3 (continued)
The prescribed texts are:
• Prose Fiction – Amy Tan, The Joy Luck Club
– Jhumpa Lahiri, The Namesake
– Charles Dickens, Great Expectations
– Ruth Prawer Jhabvala, Heat and Dust
– Tara June Winch, Swallow the Air
• Nonfiction
– Raimond Gaita, Romulus, My Father
• Drama
– Arthur Miller, The Crucible: A Play in Four Acts
– Jane Harrison, Rainbow’s End
from Vivienne Cleven et al. (eds), Contemporary Indigenous Plays
• Film
– Baz Luhrmann, Strictly Ballroom
– Rolf De Heer, Ten Canoes
• Shakespeare
– William Shakespeare, As You Like It
• Poetry
– Peter Skrzynecki, Immigrant Chronicle
The prescribed poems are:
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
Feliks Skrzynecki
St Patrick’s College
Ancestors
10 Mary Street
Migrant hostel
Post card
In the folk museum
– Emily Dickinson, Selected Poems of Emily Dickinson
The prescribed poems are:
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
66 This is my letter to the world
67 I died for beauty, but was scarce
82 I had been hungry all the years
83 I gave myself to him
127 A narrow fellow in the grass
154 A word dropped careless on a page
161 What mystery pervades a well!
181 The saddest noise, the sweetest noise
– Steven Herrick, The Simple Gift
End of paper
– 12 –
© 2014 Board of Studies, Teaching and Educational Standards NSW